Getting Into the Christmas Spirit: Vegan Chocolate Liqueur

It can be hard to get in the Christmas spirit when it's 80 degrees F outside. Living just barely in the northern hemisphere, we really don't get proper winter weather. The heat's nice when you want to put up Christmas lights, though. 

Here's a fun weather related thing to do: Look up your location on a world map, then find out what other major cities are on your latitude. Or, you could find your location on this list of cities by latitude on Wikipedia. We are just south of Cairo, Egypt, and Marrakech, Morocco, and just north of New Delhi, India and Kathmandu, Nepal. No wonder I'm a little overheated right now.

The lovely ladies of No Croutons Required requested this month, instead of a soup or a salad, everyone's best festive photographs. I may not be able to conjure a dreamy snowy scene like last year's winner (sigh), but I have Savannah holly to set the mood. And Christmas lights! We often forget to look for inspiration in our own yards. Thanks, Jacqueline and Lisa!

Savannah holly

Sun goes down, lights come on.

led lightsystem

Another great way to get in the Christmas spirit besides putting up lights is to make cookies and other food fit for a celebration. Last year, I made vegan Irish cream for the first time. It was so good, I wanted to explore other homemade liqueurs, and soon after I posted it, I found this chocolate liqueur recipe and bookmarked it to try this year. 

I had the idea to use soy creamer and coconut milk in place of the heavy cream and milk in the original recipe, but I wanted to know whether just one or the other would work, and what would be tastiest. So, I made a small amount of this - a quarter of the recipe - with just soy creamer, and another quarter of the recipe with just coconut milk plus a bit of water. Then I mixed some 50-50, and we had a taste test of the three versions. My theory was that with the coconut milk version the alcohol taste would be the mildest because of the fat content, while the soy creamer version would taste the most neutral - I suspected that you would be able to taste the coconut milk in that version.

The coconut milk version was a lot thicker than the soy creamer version, as I expected, but we were surprised by the flavors. The alcohol taste was stronger in both the pure recipes than the mix. Also, you could taste the soy milk in the creamer version, but not the coconut milk in that one (you don't taste either in the mix). We both thought the best was the mix, but the coconut milk version edged out the soy creamer one. However, if you can't tolerate or can't find one of the two ingredients, a pure version is pretty darn tasty. And if you want to make it with dairy (hi Susan!), my educated guess would be to use a pint of half-and-half for the soy creamer but keep the coconut milk.  

Hit me.

Vegan Chocolate Liqueur

UPDATE: When I originally converted this recipe from metric quantities, I doubled the rum by mistake. It's been corrected.

1 13.6 ounce can coconut milk (full fat, not lite)
about 1/4 cup water
1 pint soy creamer
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 - 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out
2 cups dark rum

Pour coconut milk in a two-cup glass measure and top off with water to make two cups.

In a medium saucepan, heat coconut milk-water mixture with soy creamer, chocolate and cocoa powder, sugar, and vanilla bean plus its seeds. Heat, stirring constantly, until mixture just begins to boil. Remove from heat and cool completely. Stir in rum. Refrigerate in jars with lids and shake before serving.

If you want to give this as gifts, sterilize the jars first. This will keep for a month, per the original recipe.

Makes 6 cups. 

And then there were five.